I really enjoy the music of the colonial American
composer William Billings. It is tuneful,
sturdy, expressive, original, and gives a kind of snapshot of musical life in
Revolutionary-War-era Boston.
So what does William Billings have to do with Master
Chorus Eastside’s Christmas in the
Northwest, which features several works by Northwest composers?
First, a little
background on Billings. He was a singing
master in late eighteenth-century Boston, meaning he taught Bostonians how to
sing and read music, conducted church choirs, and composed pieces for his six
tune books, which were his main teaching tool.
He began his working career as a tanner, but his passion for music is
evident in his introduction to his second publication, The Singing Master’s Assistant, in which he describes his feelings
upon the release of his first tune book, The
New England Psalm Singer (1770).
Here is part of it, creative eighteenth-century spellings intact, at
least as best as I can make them out. See
IMSLP for the original, http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Billings,_William
“Oh! how did my
foolish heart throb and beat with tumultuous joy! With what impatience did I wait on the Book-Binder,
while stitching the sheets and puting on the covers, with what xtacy did I
snatch the yet unfinished Book out of his hands, and press it to my bosom, with
rapturous delight, how lavish was I, with encomiums on this infant production
of my own [can’t make it out; could it be Numbskull?!]? Welcome!
Thrice welcome, thou legitimate offspring of my brain, go forth my
little Book, go forth and immortalize the name of your Author...”
And it goes on for a few more rapturous sentences until
he begins to reveal his criticisms of this first effort, finally stating that
most of it wasn’t worth printing! Hence The Singing Master’s Assistant of 1778, which
contains revised versions of the most popular tunes from his first book plus
some new numbers. He heartily recommends
it as much better than The New England
Psalm Singer.
I can almost picture him with his short leg, his one eye,
his unconcern over his appearance and manner (the famous description of him is
all over the web, and can be found in various Oxford Dictionary of Music and Musicians editions, the New Oxford Book of Carols, and lots
of other publications), ardently clutching his tune book to his breast! This is a man after my own heart!
It is in The
Singing Master’s Assistant that A
Virgin Unspotted appears, and thus the connection with our concert.
The text unfolds the familiar biblical story, and
predates Billings by a good 100 or so years; in fact, it could be heard all
over England and the colonies with all sorts of variations in text and melody. Billings’ tune is his own, which he called
Judea, and the tenor carries the melody in his four-part setting, as was
typical of the time. It is
straightforward and rugged, probably much like Billings himself. But it’s always fun to see what a modern
composer can do with a good tune, so when Seattle-area composer Chris Fraley
showed me his arrangement I leaped at the chance to perform it. He calls it Let Us Be Merry, and it is indeed a merry setting.
Chris wisely doesn’t overdress Billings’ setting, but he
adds some creative touches that reveal his own thought processes. He begins with the refrain, “Let us be
merry,” rather than the verse, “A virgin unspotted,” which supports the title
and underscores the cheerful nature of the work. He moves into a minor key for his second verse,
perhaps to reflect Joseph and pregnant Mary’s humble origins and their stressful
journey to Bethlehem as laid out in the text.
And then in his third verse (the sixth verse in the recording above), he
paints the humility of the text with a deft hand: he drops to an even lower and darker minor key, moves from
the original’s jolly 6/8 into a somber 4/4, and transfers the melody to the darker-voiced
alto. But hope is evident too, for he
repeats the last line twice to accentuate the main theme, swings back into 6/8
for the refrain, lets it spin out for a bit in simple counterpoint, and then joyfully
unleashes all in one last repeat of the refrain to conclude.
You can hear it “sung” by a computer at: http://fraleymusic.com/Music/Catalog/LetUsBeMerry
Enjoy! We
certainly have enjoyed presenting it at our concerts.
Dr. Linda Gingrich
Artistic Director and conductor
Master Chorus Eastside
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